Most & Least Popular MBA Specializations

That may be true for relationships. When it comes to where men and women specialize in business school, they may increasingly be following the same orbit — with a few notable exceptions.

That was one insight from a new report from Ready4, a mobile learning platform that helps students prepare for standardized tests, research schools, and find scholarships. According to Ready4’s data, men are almost twice as likely to pursue finance and consulting in MBA programs as women. However, the tables flip when it comes to accounting and marketing by a near equal 2-to-1 margin for women.

Nearly a quarter of the responding men—-23.41% to be exact—-planned to specialize in finance once they entered an MBA program. While finance was the most popular potential concentration for men, it only ranked third among women at 13.77%. What was the top choice for female GMAT test-takers? Marketing and accounting, which tied at 14.23% among women. These concentrations, however, generated less enthusiasm among men, chalking up 7.12% (accounting) and 6.27% (marketing) totals there.

There was also a marked enthusiasm gap between men and women in certain specializations. Men, for example, ranked strategy (4.82%) and operations management (3.52%) among their top 10 areas of study. Neither area makes the top 10 for women. Instead, their preferences include two concentrations ignored by men in the survey: health care administration (4.9%) and human resources (3.89%). Another difference involves consulting, which was chosen by 6.40% of men compared to 3.68% of women.

EXPECT GENDER DIVIDE TO CLOSE

Despite those differences, there also were several areas of agreement. In particular, both genders were increasingly gravitating toward entrepreneurship, which ranked third among men (8.27%) and fifth among women (6.02%). General management was also popular among both genders (8.66% for men and 7.16% for women), as was international business (4.67% for women and 3.43% for men).

This alignment is likely to become more of the norm, says Elad Shoushan, Founder and CEO of Ready4 and a 2014 MBA from MIT Sloan. He argues that such disparities will diminish as gender gaps continue to close across business in general. “As women continue to break down barriers in traditionally male-dominated fields such as finance,” he says, “we expect the ratios of men and women interested in each sector to steadily even out.”